The Memoirs of Helene Kottanner (1439-1440)

The Memoirs of Helene Kottanner (1439-1440)
Author: Maya Bijvoet Williamson
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 100
Release: 1998
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780859914628

Helene Kottanner's account, one of the oldest known pieces of historical prose written by a women, transcends the loyal discretion of a royal servant and is unconsiously revealing about herself and her ambitions.

The Book of Margery Kempe

The Book of Margery Kempe
Author: Margery Kempe
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 449
Release: 1985
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0140432515

The story of the eventful and controversial life of Margery Kempe - wife, mother, businesswoman, pilgrim and visionary - is the earliest surviving autobiography in English. Here Kempe (c.1373-c.1440) recounts in vivid, unembarrassed detail the madness that followed the birth of the first of her fourteen children, the failure of her brewery business, her dramatic call to the spiritual life, her visions and uncontrollable tears, the struggle to convert her husband to a vow of chastity and her pilgrimages to Europe and the Holy Land. Margery Kempe could not read or write, and dictated her remarkable story late in life. It remains an extraordinary record of human faith and a portrait of a medieval woman of unforgettable character and courage.

Women Medievalists and the Academy

Women Medievalists and the Academy
Author: Jane Chance
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 1124
Release: 2005
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780299207502

"Pioneering. . . . An important and timely collection that profiles the lives and professional careers of women medievalists in the last centuries."--Maureen Mazzaoui, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Women's Lives in Medieval Europe

Women's Lives in Medieval Europe
Author: Emilie Amt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2013-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134720602

Praise for the first edition: 'It is difficult to imagine another book in which one could find all this diverse material, and no doubt Amt's collection, in its richness, and in its genuine clarity and simplicity will takes prominent place in our expanded, diversified medieval curriculum, a curriculum that takes class, gender, and ethnicity as central to an understanding of world cultural history.' - The Medieval Review Long considered to be a definitive and truly groundbreaking collection of sources, Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe uniquely presents the everyday lives and experiences of women in the Middle Ages. This indispensible text has now been thoroughly updated and expanded to reflect new research, and includes previously unavailable source material. This new edition includes expanded sections on marriage and sexuality, and on peasant women and townswomen, as well as a new section on women and the law. There are brief introductions both to the period and to the individual documents, study questions to accompany each reading, a glossary of terms and a fully updated bibliography. Working within a multi-cultural framework, the book focuses not just on the Christian majority, but also present material about women in minority groups in Europe, such as Jews, Muslims, and those considered to be heretics. Incorporating both the laws, regulations and religious texts that shaped the way women lived their lives, and personal narratives by and about medieval women, the book is unique in examining women’s lives through the lens of daily activities, and in doing so as far as possible through the voices of women themselves.

How To Be a Medieval Woman

How To Be a Medieval Woman
Author: Margery Kempe
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0241252288

'And then he, completely astonished at her words, left off his lewdness, saying to her as many a man had done before, "Either you are a truly good woman or else a truly wicked woman." ' Brave, outspoken and guaranteed to annoy people wherever she went - including exasperated fellow pilgrims in Jerusalem and her long-suffering husband - Margery Kempe was one of the most vivid and unforgettable voices of the Middle Ages. Whether travelling alone, getting herself arrested or having visions of marrying Jesus, Margery repeatedly defied feminine convention - and also managed to compose the first autobiography in English, despite being unable to read or write. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

Memoirs of a Medieval Woman

Memoirs of a Medieval Woman
Author: Louise Collis
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1983-01-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 0060909927

For history and biography lovers, the 15th-century life and travels of the extraordinary Margery Kempe, who left her family to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer

Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer
Author: Susan Gubar
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2012-04-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393084280

A 2012 New York Times Book Review Notable Book "Staggering, searing…Ms. Gubar deserves the highest admiration for her bravery and honesty." —New York Times Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Susan Gubar underwent radical debulking surgery, an attempt to excise the cancer by removing part or all of many organs in the lower abdomen. Her memoir mines the deepest levels of anguish and devotion as she struggles to come to terms with her body’s betrayal and the frightful protocols of contemporary medicine. She finds solace in the abiding love of her husband, children, and friends while she searches for understanding in works of literature, visual art, and the testimonies of others who suffer with various forms of cancer. Ovarian cancer remains an incurable disease for most of those diagnosed, even those lucky enough to find caring and skilled physicians. Memoir of a Debulked Woman is both a polemic against the ineffectual and injurious medical responses to which thousands of women are subjected and a meditation on the gifts of companionship, art, and literature that sustain people in need.

The Power of a Woman's Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures

The Power of a Woman's Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures
Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2012-02-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110897776

The study takes the received view among scholars that women in the Middle Ages were faced with sustained misogyny and that their voices were seldom heard in public and subjects it to a critical analysis. The ten chapters deal with various aspects of the question, and the voices of a variety of authors - both female and male - are heard. The study opens with an enquiry into violence against women, including in texts by male writers (Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Straßburg, Wolfram von Eschenbach) which indeed describe instances of violence, but adopt an extremely critical stance towards them. It then proceeds to show how women were able to develop an independent identity in various genres and could present themselves as authorities in the public eye. Mystic texts by Hildegard of Bingen, Marie de France and Margery Kempe, the medieval conduct poem known as Die Winsbeckin, the Devout Books of Sisters composed in convents in South-West Germany, but also quasi-historical documents such as the memoirs of Helene Kottaner or Anna Weckerin's cookery book, demonstrate that far more women were in the public gaze than had hitherto been assumed and that they possessed the self-confidence to establish their positions with their intellectual and their literary achievements.

Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln

Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln
Author: Gluckel
Publisher: Schocken
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2011-09-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0307806383

Begun in 1690, this diary of a forty-four-year-old German Jewish widow, mother of fourteen children, tells how she guided the financial and personal destinies of her children, how she engaged in trade, ran her own factory, and promoted the welfare of her large family. Her memoir, a rare account of an ordinary woman, enlightens not just her children, for whom she wrote it, but all posterity about her life and community. Gluckel speaks to us with determination and humor from the seventeenth century. She tells of war, plague, pirates, soldiers, the hysteria of the false messiah Sabbtai Zevi, murder, bankruptcy, wedding feasts, births, deaths, in fact, of all the human events that befell her during her lifetime. She writes in a matter of fact way of the frightening and precarious situation under which the Jews of northern Germany lived. Accepting this situation as given, she boldly and fearlessly promotes her business, her family and her faith. This memoir is a document in the history of women and of life in the seventeenth century.